Leading Open Source office application and personal productivity suite for Windows, Mac, and Linux reaches a major adoption milestone

April 17, 2014 06:00 ET | Source:The Apache Software Foundation

Forest Hill, MD, April 17, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer
developers, stewards, and incubators of more than 170 Open Source
projects and initiatives, announced today that Apache OpenOffice™
has been downloaded 100 million times.

Apache OpenOffice is the leading Open Source office document
productivity suite, available in 32 languages on Windows, OS X, and
Linux. OpenOffice includes a word processor ("Writer"), a
spreadsheet ("Calc"), a presentation editor ("Impress"), a vector
graphics editor ("Draw"), a mathematical formula editor ("Math"),
and a database management program ("Base"). As Open Source
software, Apache OpenOffice is available to all users free of
charge; the C++ source code is readily available for anyone who
wishes to enhance the applications.

Originally created as "StarOffice" by StarDivision and after
further development as an Open Source product under the name
"OpenOffice.org", OpenOffice entered the Apache Incubator in 2011
and graduated as an Apache Top-level Project in October 2012.

"I'm extremely pleased to see us reach this major milestone in
less than two years," said Andrea Pescetti, Vice President of
Apache OpenOffice. "This is a testament to our community
volunteers: the hundreds of talented individuals who make Apache
OpenOffice what it is, who write the code, test for bugs, translate
the user interface, write documentation, answer user questions and
manage our servers. We remain committed to offering the successful
combination of reliability and innovation that so many users
appreciate."

Official downloads at openoffice.org are hosted by SourceForge,
where users can also find repositories for more than 750 extensions
and over 2,800 templates for OpenOffice.

"By continuously improving Apache OpenOffice Extensions and
Templates sites we show how committed we are about providing
projects with what they need most," said Gaurav Kuchhal, General
Manager for Slashdot and SourceForge. "We are happy to help open
source projects to grow, no matter where they are hosted or
developed. We have been serving over 122 Million downloads for the
Apache OpenOffice project, with daily peaks of about 250,000 and we
are committed to providing products and services that demonstrate
our dedication to technical excellence."

"Apache OpenOffice reaching 100 million downloads is a
remarkable achievement in the project's 29-year history and
testament to the power of successful Open Source communities," said
Shane Curcuru, Apache OpenOffice mentor and ASF Vice President of
Brand Management. "We extend our gratitude to all the volunteers
and users whose contribution, feedback, support, engagement, and
enthusiasm keeps us focused on delivering great software. We
couldn't celebrate this milestone without them!"

Some Trends and Fun Facts about Apache
OpenOffice
• OpenOffice supports Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X and Linux
• Top downloads by operating system, in order: Windows, Mac,
Linux
• Top downloads by browser, in order: Internet Explorer, Firefox,
Chrome
• Top 10 countries for OpenOffice downloads, in order: United
States, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, Spain,
Russia, Canada, and Poland
• OpenOffice supports 120+ languages --those that are 100%
translated and maintained are officially released. Latest languages
released include Asturian, Basque, Danish, Korean, Norwegian,
Polish, Scottish Gaelic, and Swedish, thanks to the work of new
translation volunteers
• Apache OpenOffice features integrated improvements from IBM Lotus
Symphony (a previous fork that has been closed and donated to the
ASF) to bring better compatibility with Microsoft Office
documents
• OpenOffice 4.0 debuts a major change to its user interface with
the introduction of the Sidebar, developed by the Apache OpenOffice
"dream team" in Hamburg in close cooperation with hundreds of
community members
• OpenOffice 4.0 reflects 500 bug fixes, advances in Microsoft
Office interoperability, enhancements to drawing/graphics, and
performance improvements, among many others
• The new logo for OpenOffice was chosen after a long selection
process that saw over 5000 votes cast. The winning proposal was
submitted by community member Chris Rottensteiner from South
Tyrol
• Demand for Apache OpenOffice 4.0 averages 1 million downloads per
week
• The Apache OpenOffice 4.0.1 maintenance release fixes critical
issues and improves the overall quality of the application,
including: additional native language translations, bug fixes,
performance improvements, and Windows 8 compatibility
enhancements
• Apache OpenOffice successfully supports the Microsoft Active
Accessibility (MSAA) and IAccessible2 interfaces, enabling screen
readers and other assistive technologies to work with Apache
OpenOffice, improving productivity for users who are blind or with
low-vision
• The new accessibility support makes OpenOffice even more
attractive for use by governments and public institutions, such as
the administrative region of Emilia-Romagna, Italy, that recently
announced a migration to OpenOffice, among many others
• Ports and distributed versions of Apache OpenOffice include a
portable version for Windows, the German PrOOo-box software
collection, and AndrOpen Office, an Android port of Apache
OpenOffice
• The most frequently used channel for user support is the 60,000+
user-strong official Apache OpenOffice Forum that averages over 100
posts per day and features over 270,000 posts about Apache
OpenOffice and all derivatives

Availability and Oversight
As with all Apache products, Apache OpenOffice is released under
the Apache License v2.0, and is overseen by a self-selected team of
active contributors to the project. A Project Management Committee
(PMC) guides the Project's day-to-day operations, including
community development and product releases. To learn how to become
involved with Apache OpenOffice, visit http://openoffice.apache.org/get-involved.html .

About The Apache Software Foundation
(ASF)
Established in 1999, the all-volunteer Foundation oversees more
than one hundred and seventy leading Open Source projects,
including Apache HTTP Server --the world's most popular Web server
software. Through the ASF's meritocratic process known as "The
Apache Way," more than 400 individual Members and 3,500 Committers
successfully collaborate to develop freely available
enterprise-grade software, benefiting millions of users worldwide:
thousands of software solutions are distributed under the Apache
License; and the community actively participates in ASF mailing
lists, mentoring initiatives, and ApacheCon, the Foundation's
official user conference, trainings, and expo. The ASF is a US
501(c)(3) charitable organization, funded by individual donations
and corporate sponsors including Budget Direct, Citrix, Cloudera,
Comcast, Facebook, Google, Hortonworks, HP, Huawei, IBM, InMotion
Hosting, Matt Mullenweg, Microsoft, Pivotal, Produban, WANdisco,
and Yahoo. For more information, visit http://www.apache.org/ or
follow @TheASF on
Twitter .

"Apache", "OpenOffice", "Apache OpenOffice", "OpenOffice.org",
and "ApacheCon" are registered trademarks or trademarks of the
Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other
countries. All other brands and trademarks are the property of
their respective owners.

Easily Send & Share Press Releases

GlobeNewswire, a NASDAQ OMX company, is one of the world's largest newswire distribution networks, specializing in the delivery of corporate press releases financial disclosures and multimedia content to the media, investment community, individual investors and the general public.